Hong Kong

Day 55 - 19/07/2010 - 20:43 - Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong

So we've made it here and my it was a long drawn out day. We were up at 6:30am and thanks to the extremely good location of our hotel, were at check in for 5 minutes past 7. Laura's bag had to be checked in a private room with her present, they thought here little Sure deodorant spray was suspicious. Fair enough, it did look a bit weird when you think about it.

It actually felt like we didn't have to wait that long in the airport. They had free Wifi in the departures bit so we had a quick browse on the net before boarding promptly at half 8. Problem: flight was delayed by one hour - the air traffic control hadn't given us a time! Even though we were all sat on the plane by 10 to 9! What a joke! That was very frustrating but we only ended up late into HK by about 40 minutes in the end.

Then we had to get to our hotel with the large bags which was quite arduous considering the distance. They rail network also have a pretty nasty monopoly on transport to HK Island so £8 was the price to the main station and then it only cost 70p to get the metro to the stop where the Ibis was. It's still a fair bit more expensive than Shanghai and Beijing though.

The scenery over the airport express leg of the journey was particularly beautiful, coming on and off little islands with beautiful hills which the sun helped look all the more amazing. The countryside here looks remarkable, I can't wait to get out and see some of it. Likewise, the vastness of the urban areas is too very spectacular - lots of tall buildings, making most of the urban space and preserving the green. The weather when we got outside for the first time though was unbearable. The hottest it's been (in my opinion) on this trip and the humidity was high. There were few clouds which probably multiplied the scorching feeling.

We luckily were literally 20 metres from the metro station entrance and we were outside our hotel. We've checked in. The room is small but the view of Kolwoon island and all the skyscrapers is amazing. Especially now at night.

As for sightseeing we've not seen much. We've looked around the local area, Hong Kong central (where we had tea) and we also went to look at the Nian Lan Gardens which were very nice. Small gardens, beautiful and tranquil in the middle of a very very built up area. It was nice to see. Hong Kong's government are very keen on green spaces and very clean streets which is nice.

Two observations on HK so far (aside from the more expensive bit) are 1) there seems to be a love for warning/health/safety/restrictions of a ridiculous scale signs. More so than in China. It's also a fine worthy offence for you to drink (soft drinks) in the paid areas of the metro. Up to $2000 dollars, around £180. Mad. The other one 2) is the lack of British people I've seen. I would have thought there were more here, but I'm very surprised. That said absolutely everyone we've encountered so far speaks good English and every public sign is in both languages. It's funny how some adverts are completely in Chinese as well, yet Marks and Spencer are only in English. Haha.